The Passaic County Book Festival is on Saturday June 8th at Weasel Brook Park in Clifton, NJ! This event was so much fun last year with so many authors, readings, panels, activities all on a gorgeous day in the park. I'm attending again this year, along with lots of other NJ romance authors. I'll have books to sell, and I'm happy to sign any you bring with you too—but if you want to see me, come during the earlier part of the day. I'm going to have to leave early to get to another book event I have schedule for later in the day. I hope to see you at the book festival!
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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

I'm finishing out May with a couple more snippets from The Artist's Masquerade. The Artist's Masquerade is my second book, published back in 2015 (and rereleased in 2020 with its pretty new cover). This book is the story of Cathal, a royal duke's heir who has spent his entire life doing what is expected of him by his father, putting aside his own needs and wants to do so. When his father tells him that he has to marry—and that his father has chosen his bride for him—Cathal goes along with it but then finds himself far more fascinated by his intended's companion, Flavia. What Cathal doesn't know is that Flavia is in reality Flavian, an artist in disguise and on the run from a bad situation in his home country. His friend—Cathal's intended bride—came up with the ruse to disguise him as her companion and smuggle him out of the country so he can disappear into a new life. Only everything doesn't quite go as planned, and Flavian finds himself trapped in his role and pulled into intrigue. I picked up directly after last weekend's snippet (and I'm very sorry this is too long!).

You can find more about The Artist's Masquerade here. Thanks for reading today!

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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

I'm finishing out May with a couple more snippets from The Artist's Masquerade. The Artist's Masquerade is my second book, published back in 2015 (and rereleased in 2020 with its pretty new cover). This book is the story of Cathal, a royal duke's heir who has spent his entire life doing what is expected of him by his father, putting aside his own needs and wants to do so. When his father tells him that he has to marry—and that his father has chosen his bride for him—Cathal goes along with it but then finds himself far more fascinated by his intended's companion, Flavia. What Cathal doesn't know is that Flavia is in reality Flavian, an artist in disguise and on the run from a bad situation in his home country. His friend—Cathal's intended bride—came up with the ruse to disguise him as her companion and smuggle him out of the country so he can disappear into a new life. Only everything doesn't quite go as planned, and Flavian finds himself trapped in his role and pulled into intrigue. I've picked up right after the last snippet I shared from The Artist's Masquerade.

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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

Since it's Mother's Day here this weekend, I thought I would share a snippet of a character with their mother, and the first one I thought of is actually the book I'm writing now. To Know a Dragon Spy is the second Dragons of Ivria book. There's more intrigue and a new romance and dragon shifters, of course. Natasha Snow has already done the cover, and I can't wait to share it because it's just gorgeous but that's for another day. Today, I have a snippet for you of Felix with his aunt/adoptive mother, the former queen (and mother of the current king, Felix's cousin). They don't get to see each other too often since she moved away, but she has come back to attend the king's wedding. I'm sure this will end up edited and changed before the book is finished, but here's Felix and his mother settling in for a good chat. If you read To Love the Dragon King, you've met Felix before, but Elysande is making her debut in this book.

I'll have more about To Know a Dragon Spy for you soon. Until then, check out the first Dragons of Ivria book, To Love the Dragon King, here. Thank you for reading today!

I've spent the entire first week of May reminding myself that it's May—April kind of got away from me. I did read a few fantastic books in April, though. I'm still suffering from a book hangover from one of them!

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​The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook asks its members to share six sentence snippets from their work each weekend. Check out the group's Facebook page to read all the snippets and add lots of great books to your TBR. You'll find all sorts of books with the common thread that the main character identifies as LGBTQ.

The Artist's Masquerade rereleased four years ago this weekend! The Artist's Masquerade is my second book, published back in 2015 (and rereleased in 2020 with its pretty new cover). This book is the story of Cathal, a royal duke's heir who has spent his entire life doing what is expected of him by his father, putting aside his own needs and wants to do so. When his father tells him that he has to marry—and that his father has chosen his bride for him—Cathal goes along with it but then finds himself far more fascinated by his intended's companion, Flavia. What Cathal doesn't know is that Flavia is in reality Flavian, an artist in disguise and on the run from a bad situation in his home country. His friend—Cathal's intended bride—came up with the ruse to disguise him as her companion and smuggle him out of the country so he can disappear into a new life. Only everything doesn't quite go as planned, and Flavian finds himself trapped in his role and pulled into intrigue. I'm picking up right after last week's snippet. (This snippet went a bit long—sorry! This seemed the best place to break it.)

I realized that I hadn't written a wrap-up post after JeRoWriMo this year when I received my finisher pin in the mail from Nancy Herkness, who organizes the event every year. And my finisher pin came along with a 10-year finisher pin because somehow this is my tenth time finishing the challenge!

For those who don't know, JeRoWriMo stands for Jersey Romance Writing Month. It's a writing challenge that New Jersey Romance Writers members can participate in. A little like NaNoWriMo, it challenges its participants to write a certain number of words in a month—in this case, thirty thousand words in February. And I guess I've managed to complete this challenge ten times!

My first time participating, I was working on what would become my first published novel, The Prince's Consort. Every time, I've managed to be so productive during that month for a couple of reasons. I'm not going to lie—one reason is that I'm very competitive, mostly with myself. If there is a challenge, I have to complete it. I cannot accept that failure (this may not be a great thing all the time). But it does push me to write words and make progress so I can write at least thirty thousand words and get that sparkly pin at the end. 

Another reason, maybe more important, is the the community. Writing is so often a solitary experience. We sit in front of our screens, hands on keyboards—or with pen and notebook in hand—and we try get words out, to create characters, relationships, and stories and end up potentially beating our heads against the desk sometimes too. All on our own. JeRoWriMo creates a group in which the participants come together to accomplish this challenge. Daily, we report our word counts and our successes and difficulties. We cheer each other on and give encouragement and understanding. It's both accountability and support, something that can help so much.

As I said, my first time doing JeRo, I worked on The Prince's Consort. Last year, JeRo helped me finish To Love the Dragon King, which took three years to write because of the pandemic, stress, and issues with anxiety. This year, it gave me a jolt in my writing of To Know a Dragon Spy—which was supposed to be finished before now, but has been delayed by my first bout of covid and the post-covid fatigue that followed and messed all my plans up. And in all the years in between, it has given me motivation and support while writing some of my other books too. I'm sure I'll participate again next year. Until then, congratulations and thanks to my fellow finishers and participants!

And now back to writing...